Blue screen stop 0x0000007B

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XP Dell computer boots to the desktop, then after about 30 seconds to 1 1/2 minutes (on average) the screen goes black and restarts. It appears as though it's one of the last things that loads that is causing this. No minidump files pertaining to these crashes.

Stop 0x0000007B error was only reported when attempting to run ERD Commander.

I have error checked the drive. PC Check 6.5 shows no hardware errors. I ran MemTest 86 for 5 passes on each individual RAM chip with no errors.
Found 8 instance of Trojan.Browser Helper Objects with Malwarebytes. MBR_Check found a normal MBR.

PC does not shut down in safe mode! OK. So I have tried selective startups (while checking "hide Microsoft services"). No luck selectively disabling 1/2 the startup and services items, then the other half. So that leaves Microsoft start ups. Tried SFC /scannow. Restart to desktop but still shutting down. Do I need to do a repair install or reinstall or could I zero in on this bad MS driver?
 
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Try booting safe mode w/networking support (loads a little more than plain safe mode)...will she still bounce on you? Or run fine for a long period?

Granted MWB is one of the first "go-to" antimalware apps I use in cleaning a rig, I would still reach for some other tools to run more scans with. IMO, a "shotgun approach" with several tools yields a more thorough cleaning.

Run some rootkit scanners also like TDSS.
 
Since it’s OK in safe mode there’s your answer try system restore to a month prior
As long as no major installs

I always go for easy method first
 
Since it’s OK in safe mode there’s your answer try system restore to a month prior
As long as no major installs
Click to expand...
No restore points! Makes me think that a virus might have done this.

Check for updated Dell wireless drivers, I've seen similar bluescreen problems on Dells after certain windows updates.
Click to expand...
This is a desktop.

I don't think ERD Commander would try to load a wireless driver anyway.
 
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The rest of the story:
Well I tried slaving the drive to my bench computer and backing up the data with the command prompt's xcopy command and oddly enough it was missing all kinds of files and folders. Stop the presses! So I tried scanning individual folders with Security Essentials. It wouldn't scan anything in the Windows folder. So now I run Drive Fitness Test and it doesn't even find an operating system. Must be a failing hard drive. I guess Dell's diagnostic, that included some sort of hard drive diagnostic, didn't find any problems with the drive. So that threw me off. I should have run Drive Fitness Test from the get go I guess.
 
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The saga continues! As it turns out, the hard drive is healthy. Used a different drive fitness test. All fine. The MFT was corrupted. So I recovered the data with R-Studio no problem. I had already begun installing Vista on another brand new drive. Got about 10 hours into the updates and guess what happens when I opened up Internet Explorer?.... It shuts down unexpectedly just like it had been doing in the beginning!!!!! It's strange that I was able to get 10 hours into this test. without any problems. Right now I have to use Internet Explorer to crash it. As it was doing before, no event viewer items. Only upon reboot does it note that Windows closed unexpectedly. No minidumps.

Bad motherboard? It passed all PC Check 6.5 MB tests, but I've tested known bad MB's with PC Check 6.5 that passed. When I ran the "stress test" if quickly failed, noting that the CPU failed.
 
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RegEdit said:
The saga continues! As it turns out, the hard drive is healthy. Used a different drive fitness test. All fine. The MFT was corrupted. So I recovered the data with R-Studio no problem. I had already begun installing Vista on another brand new drive. Got about 10 hours into the updates and guess what happens when I opened up Internet Explorer?.... It shuts down unexpectedly just like it had been doing in the beginning!!!!! It's strange that I was able to get 10 hours into this test. without any problems. Right now I have to use Internet Explorer to crash it. As it was doing before, no event viewer items. Only upon reboot does it note that Windows closed unexpectedly. No minidumps.

Bad motherboard? It passed all PC Check 6.5 MB tests, but I've tested known bad MB's with PC Check 6.5 that passed. When I ran the "stress test" if quickly failed, noting that the CPU failed.
Click to expand...

The two most common reasons for problems like this are hdd and ram. Since you've replaced the hard drive, throw some known good ram in it, even if used, or not the same total amount, and see what happens. This is presuming you haven't yet restored the cusrtomer's data to that new hard drive.

Memtest is not God.

Rick
 
The two most common reasons for problems like this are hdd and ram. Since you've replaced the hard drive, throw some known good ram in it, even if used, or not the same total amount, and see what happens. This is presuming you haven't yet restored the cusrtomer's data to that new hard drive.

Memtest is not God.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response, but I replaced the RAM with 2 known healthy sticks. Same deal. Open up Internet Explorer and within about 5 seconds it blacks out and restarts. Is it possible that bad RAM could have corrupted drivers related to Internet Explorer during installation? Or is it more likely MB or CPU now?

I should also note that when my friend originally brought this computer in, the city's power had gone out and after electricity was restored the PC wouldn't even start at all. As soon as I put in a new PSU it worked fine for a week (or he put up with it for a week before bringing it back in). Then it developed this shutting down problem. I later swapped in a more powerful PSU. Same shut down problems. It would seem that the original Dell PSU took the MB out WITH it.

MemTest86 no good? What can you use?
 
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RegEdit said:
Thanks for the response, but I replaced the RAM with 2 known healthy sticks. Same deal. Open up Internet Explorer and within about 5 seconds it blacks out and restarts. Is it possible that bad RAM could have corrupted drivers related to Internet Explorer during installation? Or is it more likely MB or CPU now?

I should also note that when my friend originally brought this computer in, the city's power had gone out and after electricity was restored the PC wouldn't even start at all. As soon as I put in a new PSU it worked fine for a week (or he put up with it for a week before bringing it back in). Then it developed this shutting down problem. I later swapped in a more powerful PSU. Same shut down problems. It would seem that the original Dell PSU took the MB out WITH it.

MemTest86 no good? What can you use?
Click to expand...

I never said Memtest was no good. It's usually quicker to toss in known good ram to test, and ANY software that tests ANY hardware is not infallible.

I don't know what configuration the system is in right now, nor in what order you did things. If you did the hdd and Windows installation with bad ram, it's entirely possible that the ram corrupted files. If you've restored the customer's files, the problem may lay there. And of course, other hardware may be at fault.

The only way to solve this is by the process of elimination. So, I'd say the way to go is to start over. Known good ram, new hard drive with the install you've done wiped out, complete with deleting partition. Install Windows. Before updating, does IE work? If so, start updates. If not, time to check other hardware. After each round of updates, check IE. If working, continue. If it stops working, then you know something in the last round of updates is probably the culprit. Only after the machine is fully updated and working perfectly, and after the customer's files have been scanned for malware, should they be restored to the machine. If IE still works, and the machine passes QC, you can check the customer's old ram.

Good luck, and let us know how you make out. Closure is a wonderful thing.

Rick
 
Swapped in a known healthy Pentium 4 CPU chip and now it's passing the PC Check 6.5 stress test! Yee haw! Originally PC Check said the CPU test had failed the stress test so it's good to know that I can trust this program.

I'm gonna order a chip off ebay. Hopefully that does the trick after I reinstall Windows. Knock on wood.

I think from now on I'll be running PC Check 6.5 as one of my standard tests on computers that I work on.
 
They said there was a power outage. The PSU was bad. It's possible that the PSU didn't protect the CPU. At the same time there was a TON of dust around the fan area. I guess it's possible that it might have over heated?
dust-2.jpg
 
UPDATE: Well I bought a used CPU (same one as the old one) and ran the PC Check 6.5 "stress test". Same damn result. It fails instantly. I guess it's possible that the CPU chip that I bought is bad, but I highly doubt that. It's gotta be the motherboard. It says "A failure occurred in the test CPU" but I think that the motherboard inherently gets tested at the same time.
 
I think Yeoldstonecat had it right early on:

Run some rootkit scanners also like TDSS.[/QUOTE]


So, if you've cleaned up the gray matter around the mobo and got a good chip running, I would try two things:

1) Run a boot scan with avast; and, if that produces nothing,

2) remove the coin battery and fire it up reset the CMOS. I know it sounds crazy, but I've done this with Dells in the past and it worked like a charm for weird, unexplainable problems.

Good Luck to you.
 
BSOD 0x0000007B Virus

My experience within the last couple of days has proven to me that this is more than likely a virus/malware issue. I have not came up with a fix yet but will explain how I came to my conclusion.
A customer brought her PC in a few days ago and told me she thought she had a virus. I tried booting the machine up and it booted just fine. I then went to restart the machine in safe made w/networking to perform a malware scan and received a BSOD. I tried booting into safe mode several more times to no avail. I then tried rebooting back in normally and everything went well. I went ahead and performed a malware scan. I cleaned the system from all the malware and went to reboot, but this time I received the BSOD no matter which way I tried booting into Windows. I eventually used ERD Commander to restore the system back to just before I cleaned the malware off and it booted into Windows just fine this time, but it still keeps giving me a BSOD when trying to go into safe mode.
I had a similar problem with two other machines that have Windows 7 but have fixed those already. The problem was that every time I cleaned the malware from the system it would cause the system to boot into the repair or start normally option menu repeatedly. I finally clicked on the link to send it to Microsoft once it completed the repair and it fixed the problem. This repair actually came from a friend of mine who accidently stumbled onto it. I was walking her through booting her netbook and she kept getting the same loop over and over again and finally decided to click on the send to Microsoft option and she was finally able to log into windows. She had no internet connection either, which is very wierd.
 
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